Additional Info

Nearby Theaters

In 1976 the Northgate Theatre was housed in an unremarkable and possibly the end building of a strip mall. "Northgate Theatre" was spelled out in individual red block letters on top of a marquee that reached across the front of the building.

Contrary to the description above, the Northgate Theatre was/is a free-standing building, not part of a strip mall. The building included a few small retail spaces to the left of the theatre entrance. The theatre was built near the Southwest corner of Northgate Shopping Center, a large and popular mall in the 1960’s. Patrons parked in the shopping center parking lot. It was the only walk-in theatre in Northeast El Paso for decades, and offered first-run movies as well as 50-cent Saturday matinees for kids. Sonny and Cher actually made an appearance there when their movie “Good Times” made its El Paso debut in 1967. It was originally a single-screen theatre, and later divied into two screens.

The Grand Opening ad is a great find. I was 13 years old, and we rode our bikes over to the theater when we saw the searchlight (the old carbon arc version). There were reporters interviewing people on the red carpet. It was a big deal for an otherwise boring part of town. The date had to be June 1966, though. The movie wasn’t released until December 1965.

Let’s give the Northgate its due — it was a very nice high-class first-run place when it opened. It may have looked a little spartan compared to the razzle-dazzle design of older venues, but that just refelects the architectural style of its day. It fell on hard times when its neighborhood declined and the shopping center gradually went downhill and finally closed.

The Northgate not only had a great location on the parking lot of the largest shopping center in that entire end of El Paso, but it was also close to Irvin High School and right next door to a branch library. Early on, kids were known to tell their parents they would be studying at the library after school, when they really planned to hit the Northgate in a big group. Sometimes they’d swarm the box office and then surround the ticket-taker, confusing everybody while many of them slipped in without paying.

There was another Northgate Theatre in Seattle. Also located at the end of the first mall in the country they say. Art moderne/deco. Large and high end in appearance. Neon accents in the ceiling like circles and a working curtain. Waterfall if I remember. A huge lobby and a huge marquee that stretched across the front of the building. Also deco. Should have been saved. Gone many years now. Mall is more active than ever however. The very booming Seattle you know!

There was also another Northgate Theatre in Durham, North Carolina as well that is also listed on the Cinema Treasures site,but it is listed as the Northgate Twin Theatres. That theater opened on Christmas Day 1962 with Doris Day and Stephen Boyd in “Jumbo” that had a seating capacity of 750. It was twinned on June 17, 1975 and closed in 1986. I do have the opening ads for the Northgate Theatre’s grand opening in Durham from Christmas Day 1962. Contact me at